Wheel of Fate (37 page)

‘He will do nothing,' Celia, to my great astonishment, answered for me. ‘At least, not immediately. He will accompany me home, and by the time that Clemency and Sybilla have been put in possession of the facts, and by the time that they have sent to Chancery Lane, or even, perhaps, to Westminster, and brought Oswald home to hear the story and raise the hue and cry, the two of you should be clear of the city and lost somewhere in the countryside. The choice of direction naturally is your own, but if I were you, I should make for the coast and take ship to France. Later you can make your way home to Ireland.'

Henry looked at his sister and smiled faintly at the mutinous expression on her face. ‘I'm afraid, Lucy, my dear, that we have no choice. Not unless you fancy trying to overcome the pair of them, which would be foolishness. Not only is Master Chapman fully forewarned of any such move on our part, but he is also armed with my knife. And I don't doubt that Celia could prove a match for you. Moreover, the box of feverfew extract suggests that Julian Makepeace knew where Roger was bound when he left the apothecary's shop. The law would soon be hard on our heels.'

‘Are the other Godsloves to go unpunished then?' Arbella demanded angrily.

‘They won't go unpunished,' her brother answered quietly. ‘The knowledge that it was their own wrongdoing that brought retribution upon them will stay with them for the rest of their lives. Furthermore, I suspect that Celia has no intention of returning to live at the Arbour.' He raised an eyebrow at her as he spoke.

She nodded. ‘You're right. I shall marry Roderick Jeavons if he still wants me. I've always been fond of him and he'll make me a good husband, I'm sure of that.' She glanced at me. ‘Let's be off, Roger.'

‘No,' I said, backing against the door and pointing the knife blade at Henry Maynard. ‘These people are thieves and murderers. They should not be allowed to escape the penalty for their crimes. I'll stay here and watch them while you go for assistance.'

Celia clicked her tongue impatiently. ‘And what proof do we have of anything they've done? They've told you themselves that they are innocent of Reynold Makepeace's stabbing and Clemency's illness. Charity's death seems, on the face of it, a simple accident, as does Sybilla's mishap. And you'll never find anyone willing to admit to pushing a block of masonry over on her, any more than you'll be able to discover the footpads who were paid to murder my brother. Or,' she added after a second or two's thought, ‘any more than you will persuade Clemency and Sybilla to own in public to the wrong they committed all those years ago.'

I considered her words. There was a great deal of truth in them. All the same . . .

‘Checkmate,' Henry said softly.

‘Not necessarily,' I snapped. ‘If I were to go to the Duke of Gloucester and disclose to him the details of this affair, I'm sure he would believe me. He trusts me, you see. And he dislikes injustice as much as I do.'

Celia nodded. ‘Adela told us something of the work you've done for the duke, Roger, so I, at least, know that that is not an idle boast. But there is injustice here, on both sides. I cannot excuse the misery that these two have caused, but neither am I able to overlook the fact that the initial wrongdoing was that of my half-sisters. And I have little doubt that Oswald, although only a boy of fourteen at the time, both knew of the plan and condoned it.' She shivered suddenly. ‘I realize now that there has always been something about him that repelled me. I would just never let myself admit it before. So!' She smiled at me. ‘We will do things my way, if you please. After all, I have been more injured than you. I lost my full-blood brother.'

In the end, I allowed myself to be talked into doing as she wanted; not, I regret to say, because her argument altogether convinced me – although, as I mentioned earlier, there was something in what she said – but because I knew that to do things my way would mean the possibility of a long delay before I could set out for home. With luck, I might now find myself in Bristol within a week or two . . .

And so indeed it was that two days later, on Friday, the ninth of May – the day that the young king rode in procession through the London streets to the royal apartments in the Tower; the day that his coronation was set for Tuesday, June the twenty-fourth; the day that my lord of Gloucester despatched more men to reinforce those already manning the fortifications of Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight – I set out westwards on my journey home, if not with a spring in my step and a song on my lips, then at least with less dissatisfaction than I had anticipated.

Celia had been quite correct in assuming that neither Clemency nor Sybilla would be willing to admit to selling the Maynards to the Irish slavers. Oswald had been a different matter. He was all for revenge, for raising the hue and cry to lay the fugitives by the heels, and was almost struck dumb with rage at their escape. I thought at one moment that I should have to defend both Celia and myself from physical violence. But his sisters restrained him, pointing out with some asperity that, being only a boy at the time, he could easily be exonerated from the charge of slave-dealing; a charge which, even if it could not be satisfactorily proved, would be mud which stuck.

They were all three in a state of shock after learning the true identity of Arbella and ‘Father Berowne', but to Oswald it was as nothing to the shock of Celia's scorn and her decision to marry Roderick Jeavons. Indeed, had I not personally escorted her and her baggage to Old Dean's Lane that very afternoon, where she awaited the doctor's return, I truly believe that Oswald would have found some way to keep her prisoner at the Arbour. As for me, he could not bear to have me in his sight, and it was only Clemency's insistence that I be allowed to rest for a day before setting out on my homeward journey, that enabled me to remain for that night and the next.

I took the opportunity of the day's grace thus granted me to write a letter to Timothy Plummer concerning what I had seen and heard at the house next to Roderick Jeavons's. This I entrusted to Clemency, extracting her promise that its delivery to Crosby's Place would be delayed until the following Monday, by which time, God willing, I should be well on my way home, using those hidden paths and byways known only to foot-travellers, out of the reach of mounted men – if, that was, Timothy should decide to send after me.

And so, in the pale sunshine of a warm spring morning, a bundle of those clothes which Adela had not taken home with her slung across one shoulder, my cudgel in my hand and sufficient money for my needs in the pouch at my waist, I strode, whistling tunelessly, along the track towards Reading. The little king was safely on his throne, the Woodville plot against the duke had been foiled, the plotters in prison, I had solved the Godsloves' mystery for them, however unsatisfactory the outcome, God was in His heaven and all was right with my world . . .

But Fortune, that fickle jade, was about to spin her wheel in a totally unforeseen direction, affecting king and commoner alike. Nothing would ever be the same again.